On April 12th, 1964, Malcolm X made a speech before a large gathering on the merits of black nationalism. Below is a one-minute snippet from that speech, discussing the logic of African-Americans supporting the Democratic Party in such huge numbers.

Transcript:

In Washington, D.C., in the House of Representatives, there are 257 who are Democrats. Only 177 are Republican. In the Senate there are 67 Democrats; only 33 are Republicans. The party that you backed controls two-thirds of the House of Representatives and the Senate, and still they can’t keep their promise to you.

‘Cause you’re a chump.

Anytime you throw your weight behind a political party that controls two-thirds of the government and that party can’t keep the promise that it made to you during election time, and you’re dumb enough to walk around continuing to identify yourself with that party, you’re not only a chump, but you’re a traitor to your race.

—Malcolm X

Now, allow me to paraphrase Malcolm, to reflect the current state of affairs:

Right now (since January 2009), in the House, there are 256 who are Democrats.  Only 179 are Republican.  In the Senate there are 59 Democrats; only 41 are Republicans.  The party that you backed controls two-thirds of the House of Representatives and nearly 60% of the Senate, and put a black man in the White House, and still they didn’t keep their promise to you.

‘Cause you’re a chump.

Anytime you throw your weight behind a political party that controls two-thirds of the government and that party can’t keep the promise that it made to you during election time, and you’re dumb enough to walk around continuing to identify yourself with that party…

Well…I’ll let you come to your own conclusions.

But as you think about it, also consider this: Between 1964 and 2010, how much “Change” has there really been?

(Note: This is in no way meant as an endorsement for the Republican Party. Malcolm was no more forgiving of them. And certainly I’m not. The difference is that Republicans do not even pretend to represent African-Americans, and since at least the advent of the “Southern Strategy” – redoubled through the Tea Party – they have become openly hostile towards African-American interests.)

I’ve long understood that language and thought are two sides of the same coin, meaning that language acquisition is critical to learning.  For students from other countries who come to live and learn in the United States, their ability to speak – and think – in English is vital in determining their success academically and in their future lives as participants in our society.  I have never been of the ethnocentric mindset that non-English speakers should learn English out of some obligation to the country or its citizens.  I think that it is well within a person’s rights to maintain their first language and never learn of bit of English, if they are able to live comfortably while doing so.  Where an inability to speak English inconveniences native English speakers, as happens often enough in customer service scenarios, it is not the fault of the non-English speaker, but of the company that hired the worker in a capacity where speaking English was important.  After all, where customer support lines are outsourced to other countries, it has nothing to do with customer convenience, and everything to do with the company maintaining their bottom line – that is, saving money.

What’s important is that we recognize that all language has equal value within its own cultural context.  For non-English speakers who live in and work in settings where English is not used or even necessary, it certainly should not be required.  Any talk of English being the “official” language of the United States is nothing less than xenophobic nonsense.

However, there is much to be said about the practicality of learning and using English in contemporary American society.  Because of the great cultural plurality that makes up the United States milieu, it can be expected that there would be a common language to allow all of its disparate members to communicate.  English is as good a choice of any, and is in fact the best choice, if only because it is the language of academia and of commerce.  This means that in order for people to have equal access to education, and to be well-positioned to participate in the U.S. economy, it is important for them to learn English – and not just any English, but Standard American English (SAE). This is not about acquiescing to the prejudices of those who devalue other languages, but for the the obvious utility of knowing the language that undergirds American society.

Considering these things brought me to the idea of designating speakers of African-American Vernacular English as what Education calls “English Language Learners (ELLs), meaning that they should participate in programs teaching English as a second language (ESL).  Thirteen years ago, the Oakland Unified School District passed a resolution that said that “Ebonics” – coterminous with  AAVE – would be recognized as a language distinct from English, and that speakers of AAVE would be eligible for programs geared towards ELLs.  At that time – mind you I was eighteen years old, uneducated, and self-righteous, a dangerous combination – I dismissed the Oakland resolution as so much nonsense.  At that time, and well into my college years, I maintained that there was no such thing as AAVE, that it was little more than slang, or at my most thoughtful  that it was a variation of English that resulted from socioeconomic inequality.  For those reasons I thought it should not be recognized as a language, and I thought that doing so would only perpetuate a situation where African-Americans were not learning Standard American English.

It has been a frequent occurrence of late for me to come to a position in my adult life that is the complete opposite of my position in earlier years, and every time it has occurred I have been able to attribute the difference to the profound ignorance of my youth.  By this I do not mean that I “came around” to an “adult” way of thinking, but literally that I was ignorant – I simply did not have the information needed to even take a position on a given issue.  Such is the case again with AAVE and its recognition as a language.  Imagine my dismay to discover that my own attitudes towards AAVE were rooted in racism – a subtle form of racism that devalues something due to its association with a group of people.  Regarding AAVE not as a language, or worse, as some mutant or inferior variant, stems from the institutionalized idea that African-Americans and their culture are some perversion of humanity or American culture.

If you reject that idea outright, consider how you or others use the word “ghetto” – invariably to refer to something of inferior quality.  And although the term came into use first to describe ethnically homogenous neighborhoods – especially Jewish ones – in the common parlance of today, “ghetto” refers to low-income African-American neighborhoods.  So, if “ghetto” in some way equates to African-American or “black”, and it is used to describe something inferior, then what does that say to you?  Think about it carefully.  It is also similar to the current trend of referring to unfavorable things as “gay” – equating homosexuality with the negative.  AAVE, for its association with African-Americans, is regarded as inferior.

What I failed to understand thirteen years ago when the Oakland “controversy” first made headlines, is that recognizing AAVE as a language did not preclude African-American students learning Standard American English.  This was a misunderstanding shared by Jesse Jackson, who I mention here only for his questionable designation as an important “black leader”.

Jackson said:

“I understand the attempt to reach out to these children, but this is an unacceptable surrender, borderlining on disgrace. It’s teaching down to our children.”

[...]

“They cannot get a job at NBC or CBS or ABC unless they can master this language, and I’ll tell you they can master it if they are challenged to do so.”

These words indicate that Jackson – along with so many others – completely misunderstood the OUSD resolution.  Far from “surrender”, the resolution was empowering to African-American students in a number of ways. As stated by TESOL – the Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages:

TESOL affirms that the variety of English known as African American Vernacular English, Black English, Ebonics and sometimes by other names, has been shown through research to be a rule-governed, linguistic system, with itsown lexical, phonological, syntactic and discourse patterns and, thus, deserves pedagogical recognition.

The Board notes that effective educational programs recognize and value the linguistic systems that children bring to school. Their programs use these linguistics systems as an aid and resource to facilitate the acquisition of Standard American English. Research and experience have shown that children learn best if teachers respect the home language and use it as a bridge in teaching the language of the school and wider society. Likewise, if the children’s cultural and social backgrounds are valued, their self-respect and self-confidence are affirmed and new learning is facilitated.

Because language and thought are closely related, the achievement disparity between African-American and Euro-American students, sometimes falsely attributed to genetic differences, likely has more to do with the language disparity.  If African-American students are speaking and thinking in AAVE, but are being assessed academically in Standard American English, then it is only logical to expect that those students would be at a disadvantage – the same disadvantage faced by students of other languages.

Now here you may be thinking that it’s a stretch to compare African-American students who speak AAVE, which is by definition a different form of English, to students from other countries who speak languages completely unlike English.  To say that a student who only speaks Spanish is in the same position as the student who speaks AAVE would be a stretch, and so that’s not at all the point I am trying to make.

The fact – and this is perhaps the essential point of this essay -  is that different students, varying by background, economic status, and other factors, for their differences have different needs.  When it comes to language differences, educators recognize that English-language learners arrive in their classrooms at different levels of proficiency in speaking English.  Most school districts identify and categorize students within different proficiency levels, ranging from “pre-emergent” – meaning that they do not speak any English – to “proficient”, meaning that they have a mastery of English equal to that of native speakers.  There are varying levels between pre-emergent and proficient, such as basic, intermediate, and advanced.  Most districts test their ELLs to determine their level upon entering school, with the expectation that they show adequate progress and within a few years time reach English proficiency.

The Oakland resolution intended to take this same approach with its African-American students, that is, to ensure that they had access to those resources that amend the language disparity between AAVE and SAE.  It is a given that students with no knowledge of English have a special need for English acquisition, but what is taken for granted is that all students born and raised in America should speak and have mastered standard American English, an idea that completely ignores the cultural diversity of the United States, including the different languages that are spoken here.

Beyond recognizing AAVE as a separate language for theoretical purposes, I suspect that were students who speak AAVE as their first (or only) language to be tested for English proficiency the same way as students from other countries, we may find that many of them test below the “proficient” designation.  Ordinarily it is up to parents to tell the school districts whether or not their children will need ESL accommodations, but because those needs may not even recognized by the parents – let alone school administrators – many students are held to the proficient standard even where they are not proficient.  Where AAVE is dismissed as a mere dialect or slang, the needs around English language acquisition are ignored, and the achievement gap is attributed either to economic differences or genetic deficiency.

Thirteen years after the Oakland resolution, even though I find myself doing a 180 degree turn and supporting it instead of denouncing it, there are a few places where my thoughts still diverge, and where I still maintain some of my earlier positions.  The Oakland resolution stated that AAVE has a basis in the the languages of West Africa, particularly the Niger-Congo languages, and it is for that reason that it should be recognized as a separate language and not a mere dialect.  I found this argument difficult to accept thirteen years ago, and I have my doubts about it today, but the difference today is that I recognize it as an argument for linguists, and withdraw from taking any position.  I am convinced still that AAVE is rooted in socioeconomic inequality, in particular, the numerous institutional barriers between African-Americans and access to educational resources.  Starting with slavery, African-Americans were only expected and allowed to learn enough English to fulfill their roles as servants, and propagating into the present with the fact that African-Americans remain disproportionately in the lower economic class, which invariably means diminished access to quality education.

The difference in my perspective now is that I understand that the “hows” or “whys” of AAVE are irrelevant.  Only the “what” is important – that AAVE is a separate language.  Even were we to continue to regard AAVE as a mere dialect, it would not change the fact that a language barrier exists, and that resources need to be directed towards bringing AAVE-speakers to proficiency in Standard American English.

While I am not suggesting that making the necessary connection between AAVE and ESL is a one-shot solution for closing the achievemnt gap, I think that in recognizing and addressing the disparity, we can expect the same positive results shown by speakers of other languages.  To ignore the language barrier, and continuing to attribute achievement differences exclusively to economic – or worse, genetic – causes, is to deny students – and future citizens – an equal opportunity to succeed.

In the public discourse about racism and its particular effects on the status and plight of African- Americans, views seem to be polarized towards two extremes. On the one hand you have people like Bill Cosby, Shelby Steele, and Jon McWhorter who exalt the concept of personal accountability above all other reasons for the “black dilemma”. Then you have those who stress that racism is the primary cause of socioeconomic disparity, lack of opportunity, and inequality – in essence “blaming the white man for black people’s problems”.

But where is the middleground? As with all things it is clear to me that a balanced view is necessary here, yet not too many people seem willing to discuss the roles of both lack of personal accountability (and the anti-intellectualism, self-hatred, and self-sabotage associated with it) and racism. We don’t even have to consider the two factors as equal, and it doesn’t really matter which is more significant, as long as we recognize that the problem of race and equality for African-Americans is too complex to attribute to one set of causes.

There is such a division between the two ideological camps, just as there seems to be between “black intellectuals” and lay African-Americans. I was speaking to my father, who could probably be considered one such intellectual, and he expressed a complete indifference – even belligerence – towards other African-Americans who he perceives as unintelligent and irredeemable. It is clear that he takes the side of Cosby and the “black conservatives” but while people like Cosby and McWhorter issue their message for the purpose of progress, however myopic they may be, my father is content to just dismiss socially encumbered African-Americans into oblivion. “Put them in a hole and let them kill eachother”, is what he said to me. Take those words out of his mouth and put them in the mouth of a white man and they become Machiavellian and social Darwinist.

I mention my father’s view not because he is anyone important or influential, but because I suspect this is a view that is shared by many “black conservatives”, although they may pay lip service to the ideal of progress through accountability. That is to say that these ideologues have already in many ways given up on real possibilities for change, and have instead embraced an ideology to “save the better of us” at the expense of everyone else.

I understand the frustrations and the outrage and the separation between so-called black intellectuals and black conservatives and the mainstream African-American community on whose behalf they claim to fight. I have felt the same ostracization as Jon McWhorter for daring to “talk white”, the resentment for not sustaining the apparent status quo of anti-intellectualism. I also feel that Bill Cosby is not far off-base when he criticizes African-Americans for their own role in their dilemma. However I think that this mantra of personal accountability has also become one of accusation and condescension that serves no purpose other than to nurture self-hatred and dissension amongst African-Americans in a situation where clearly inspiration and solidarity are necessary. I have several times used the term “community” as if to suggest there is or ever was such solidarity, but this ideological separation amongst other things reminds me that, in fact, there is not.

My father says that he does not give a damn about “them”, them being those African-Americans who are mired in the difficulties of the black dilemma, caught between racism on one side and self-sabotage on the other. But I do not share that view. As much as “they” frustrate me – and I only separate myself from them on the basis of my privilege and lesser experience of the “black dilemma” – and as often as I want to give up, I absolutely refuse to abandon “them”. I have no idea what is possible, and I have no idea what I can personally achieve to better the status of the disenfranchised African -Americans, but I am almost certain that the answer lies somewhere in the middleground between personal accountability and full acknowledgement by ALL people of the effects of the institution of race and racism.

I mourn the fact that there is such a divide even between myself and other African-Americans as to make it difficult, even impossible sometimes, for me to communicate my thoughts to them. It troubles me that all my lofty theorizing and ideology seemingly has no practical application. The language barrier between Standard American English and African American Vernacular English, which parallels the ideological divide, cripples me in that I do not have the words to express my ideas in a way to make them more widely accessible, and in that much of what I have to say is categorically dismissed because of the way in which I say it.

There are so many different voices speaking out against the same problem, yet they are shouting at eachother across an ideological divide rather than speaking to one another in a way that is truly conducive to progress. And that saddens me in ways I can’t even put into words.

I am reminded of something I read about Gandhi which said that in the same breath that he fought for equality for Indians in British-controlled South Africa, he vocally denied the rights of “black” South Africans to that same equality. It was as if it were just as important to separate Indians from “kaffirs” as it was to equalize the statuses of Indians and whites. How this relates to the topic at hand is that I feel that “black intellectuals” are so busy distinguishing themselves from black stereotypes and those real people the stereotypes have come to represent, that they have in effect abandoned the most ideal cause of true equality. I am of the mindset that equality for anything less than all of us is equality for none of us.

“Black intellectuals” and “black conservatives”, in their bids for social progress for African- Americans, need to remember not to alienate everyone else. Between the black bourgeoisie and the black stereotype are millions of real people caught up in a real struggle that cannot be won from opposite sides of the ideological divide. Just as it is the “responsibility” of African-Americans to take their fate into their own hands, to educate themselves, to push themselves, to do all that we know is necessary to bridge the socioeconomic gap, it is also the responsibility of conservatives and intellectuals to reach out instead of pointing the finger, to suggest rather than accuse, and to provide guidance rather than condemnation. If you cannot, then respectfully withdraw from the conversation, because you are no longer in service to progress.

It should be understood from the start that I am writing as an American and I am talking exclusively about the experience of the African Diaspora in the United States. How the terms mentioned apply globally to various other groups of people is beyond the scope of this essay.

Blackness does not exist in a vacuum. It exists only as a reflection of whiteness. It represents both how peoples of the African Diaspora have been regarded and treated by white people – racism, discrimination, subjugation, and annihilation, both physical and cultural. It also represents how the Diaspora has responded to these conditions – submission, acceptance, and resistance.

Blackness also further validates whiteness, existing as a point of reference. White people can claim “We are not that” – that being the exotic or inhuman “other”.

At some point, American society determined that the word “nigger” was inappropriate in the public sphere. That which was a commonly accepted term to describe so-called “black people” – here defined as enslaved Africans and their descendants – became unacceptable only because of its direct association with slavery, or the slave-holding south. That it became taboo has nothing to do with any sudden revelation on the part of white people that slavery, subjugation, or inequality was wrong, and thereby the terms that imply those processes should be abolished.

It became taboo as white society scrambled to erase the stains of the past from its consciousness – a feat that has been mostly achieved in contemporary society. The word “nigger” is one of those beacons that penetrate the veil of delusion, that remind “black people” as well as “white people” that the legacy is not dead, that it has merely transformed. Those who use the word in a racist context are considerably more genuine than their apologetic brethren, as they do not suffer under any pretenses of equality. They acknowledge and celebrate it – abhorrent for certain – but that at least makes them conscious of it.

The etymology of the word “nigger” has to do with a mispronunciation or warping of “negro” or similar words which in the European languages of the slave-holding Europeans meant “black”. It is not that the word “nigger” itself, as some unique linguistic phenomenon, confers lesser inhuman status upon darker people. It is that in meaning “black”, an exaggeration of darker skin tones, it also came to mean “inferior” due to its association with those darker skinned people. In other words, the less-than-human status was conferred first, and then all things associated with them as such, came to refer to inferiority. In this way, “black” – is just as fundamentally racist as “nigger”. This becomes even clearer when you hear people use the term “blacks” instead of “black people” – again a removal of the human element. Of course those same people also probably say “whites”, but there is no dehumanizing dimension to whiteness, and therefore it does not carry the same connotation.

Categorization is an everyday practice in every human society. We facilitate our understanding of a multitude of phenomena by trying to group them by their common traits. This is true of everything – objects, animals, ideas, and people. “Black” is used to categorize people who are perceived to have common traits. However, these traits are numerous. They are not exclusively biological, as there are as many differences within that group as there are similarities, just as there are between “black” people and any other perceived group. The biological differences between human beings are fluid in how they pervade the entire species, and do not create such distinct separations. The traits are not merely visual, as the spectrum of so-called “black people” incorporates incomparable diversity.

This is not to say that there are not identifiable biological differences between human groups, or that all systems of group classification are invalid. However, those differences do not at all correspond to how those groups are identified in America – our conception of race. Furthermore, genetic differences are really only relevant within the context of medicine, and even doctors are careful not to attribute the prevalence of disorders within perceived groups to biology alone. They realize that those disorders may have as much to do with bad practices transmitted through culture, such as diet.

Within the medical context, to whatever extent racial classifications are helpful in identifying high risk conditions, and in fostering a culture of illness prevention, then they should be examined further. But there is little need for these classifications to be transmitted into American culture, as they have proven only to be divisive.

The differences between people aren’t merely social either, as “black people” also exist at nearly all levels of the socioeconomic spectrum, albeit with a clearly uneven distribution. They are not intellectual or emotional, because no one can claim to know the minds of an entire group of people, what they think or how they feel.

Then on what grounds do we even classify certain people as “black”? So-called black people themselves, here in America, may see the term as synonymous with “African-American”, and claim that a certain group of people share in the experience and history of subjugation, discrimination, hatred, and oppression. Indeed there is a group of people with this shared experience, but even the degree to which they experience it exists along a spectrum, with some able to blissfully ignore it, while others feel that they suffer under its influences on a daily basis.

It is not merely that generalizations are made about “black people”. Blackness itself is the generalization. Blackness purports that all people of visible African descent have the same experience without exception, and denies any claims to individuality.

If black, then, is defined as a group of people with this shared experience, then it reaffirms my earlier claim that it exists only in response to whiteness. The aforementioned experience was created and is maintained by so-called white people, who continue to need some justification for the sense that they exist in opposition to, or at least distinct from, a darker skinned “other”. Many so-called black people themselves cling to this identity for the same reason, accepting their place as a minority “other”, although now in some way resisting the experience rather than succumbing to it. But they still only exist as a response, rather than due to anything inherent to their being or character. Of course, for all my pedantics here, I realize that most people use “black” to describe themselves simply out of tradition. “It’s not that deep”, someone might say. Until it is. And, really, it has been since the beginning, but it’s been so co-opted into “black identity” that it’s been taken for granted.

The cultural phenomenon known as “black pride” is a paradox. On the one hand proponents acknowledge their perceived differences from others – while somehow ignoring the reasons for those perceptions and their basis in demonization – while espousing a pride within that identity. How can an individual take pride in the characteristics ascribed to a entire spectrum of people?  How can one be proud to be considered inferior? Now of course no so-called black person would consider themselves inferior, but in accepting the term “black”, they are validating that exact perception of their being.

The so-called “black experience” is a fact of many people’s lives. Its effects cannot be underestimated or ignored, and certainly should never be forgotten. However, this does not mean that it must be used as a basis for people’s identity. Our lives are certainly affected by many natural and cultural phenomena, such as thunderstorms and earthquakes, the loss of a job or the loss of a loved one. We do not then become Thunderstormians or Unemployedians. There is clearly a sense of identity that exists before and supersedes those events. In the same way, so-called black people possess a fundamental character and identity that exists apart from, albeit influenced by, the “black experience”.

This identity is dichotomous, because on the one hand each person has a uniqueness that prevents them from being totally submerged within any system of classification. Yet on the other hand they have so much in common with every other one of their fellow human beings as to under certain circumstances ignore their differences altogether. As a hypothetical scenario, were a hostile alien race to suddenly set upon the earth, they would become the exotic and reviled “other” and the whole of humanity most likely would unite against them.

A distinction must be made here, between the “black experience” and identity as “African-American” – a term I begrudgingly tolerate. It is not merely a matter of word choice. If the word black is understood as fundamentally racist, then the “black experience” is only the shared experience of being subjugated and defeated by racism. On the other hand, there are many things – cultural phenomena – which have been transmitted through generations of people from Africa. Art, religion, music, food, kinship systems – in fact, practically all aspects of African-American culture have been influenced in shades by an African heritage.

The problem is that Africa is a giant continent, not some small country, and a continent with such immense diversity that even the demarcation of nations there does not represent the distribution of biological and cultural variation. This is to say that there is no homogeneous “African” culture, and therefore no single culture to which American members of the Diaspora can trace their identity or customs. There is also the fact that many so-called African-Americans do not even know from which region in Africa their ancestors came. Therefore, more than any of the cultural practices that stem from the African continent, the central current of African-American identity is also the “black experience”, that is, the shared legacy of slavery.

The United States is one of the only places in the world with such strong cultural distinctions between its members. A place like Indonesia may have 2,000 ethnic groups and 500 languages (those numbers are arbitrary – the point is to say that there are a lot) but the differences between them probably exist along a spectrum rather than in a large number of discrete and seemingly irreconcilable groups as exist here. This being the case, even the “American” identity is subject to question. If there is anything distinctly American, it is that the American cannot be defined as any one thing.

At least that is the reality of the situation, but in practice, those things which have been deemed “American” are those ideologies and practices of “white people”. Everything and everyone else is so distinctly un-American that they require an additional prefix. There are Asian-Americans, Arab-Americans, and of course African-Americans, but those who subscribe to the white identity are simply “American”. These include Spanish, Italians, Dutch, Irish, Polish – and in some cases Jewish people – except where these groups retain their cultural differences and identify as whatever particular kind of American. And this is what has to change. We who consider ourselves American need to stake our claim upon that identity and see it become more adequately representative of our diversity.

After all, if American-ness is something that can only be fully claimed by “white people” and African-ness is diluted, unidentifiable, then where does that leave so-called African-Americans in identifying themselves? With the “black experience”. Again we have a situation where a group of people are almost forced to identify themselves through the atrocities and grievous injustices once committed (and still being committed) against them. Again their identification is based on the actions and perceptions of another group of people – a group of people who have chosen to regard them as less than human.

If your rosy picture of reality leads you to think that this is not still the case, that there is no legacy to slavery, that “black people need to get over it”, or that we live in anything sort of “color-blind” society, then you are delusional. It was only eleven years ago that American “scholarship” produced a book that presented “scientific evidence” that so-called black people – something they even had trouble defining – were on the whole less intelligent than so-called white people. The ease with which the views of that book and similar “scholarship” were accepted into the mainstream, and continue to color people’s perceptions of group differences only reminds us of the strength of slavery’s legacy.

The perception of certain people as inferior on the basis of their “blackness” – buried as it may be beneath pretenses of tolerance and misguided “diversification” initiatives – is still an undercurrent to American society. Why should anyone be complicit in this demonization by routinely accepting the label of inferiority? Blackness has nothing to do with African-ness, except by chance. Had the colonialist Europeans decided to take most of their slaves from China, then the Chinese would be “black” – in terms of status, as obviously a different term would’ve emerged. Instead, blackness has everything to do with whiteness. If whiteness itself is a fallacy, and black identity only exists as a reflection of it, then it is equally inauthentic, and equally representative of the most ill-conceived stratification of humanity to ever exist in all of history.

Blackness, as I’ve said, is not a characteristic of anyone. It is something that was and continues to be inflicted upon a perceived group of people. In other words, no one is born black, but rather they are “blackened” by society. Just as different peoples of European descent “bleached” themselves in taking on a white identity in order to benefit from the corollary status advantages.

Now the word “inflicted” carries a negative connotation, and indeed blackness is a negative attribution. For proof of this, all anyone needs to do is consider in what context they use the term. “Black people”…what? Invariably what follows is something negative, either a racist generalization on one end or a claim to victimization on the other. Either way, blackness refers not to the people in question but to the status conferred upon them.

Identity is a fluid concept. It is constantly changing and must be highly adaptable to changes in the surrounding environment. For this reason, and because of its foundation, and because of its self-renewing and detrimental effects, the so-called “black” identity needs to be eliminated. This does not mean forgetting the legacy of slavery, subjugation, and oppression. That can never happen. This does not mean being oblivious to the ways in which people classify others, and how those perceptions shape our culture. That would be blissful ignorance. The acknowledgment of the institution of race is as much a necessity as dressing properly for bad weather. This does not mean that we have to let it define us as human beings, or define the relationships we share with other human beings.

To be a “black person” is to play right into the hands of those who seek to retain you as so necessarily different and so unacceptably “other”. So-called “black people” need to get on with the business of being human again – humans with a unique history and plight for certain – but still humans who need not be defined by it.

So for all of this, what am I really saying here? That self-identifying “black people” need to start identifying themselves in a way that is truly representative of the great diversity and uniqueness that makes up the rich spectrum of humanity within that perceived group, rather than falling into this self-limiting stigma of “blackness”. I would say one ideal would be – as I mentioned earlier – to fully claim American-ness, to wrest it from white exclusivity.

This means claiming it through our language, through our self-estimation, through our actions, such as being more active in the socio-political process. This is especially important when we consider the nation’s diminishing reputation throughout the world, and how this reflects upon us as people. So-called “Black people” and “African-Americans”, their history notwithstanding, need to play a more significant role in defining what it means to just be American.

There are problems with claiming “American-ness”, however, inherent in the fact that there is a prevailing disconnect between African-Americans and the mainstream society, one sustained by institutional inequality.  It is difficult to find identity within a country that rejects or dismisses your contributions, and rejects you bodily, linguistically, and culturally, and a country where the demographic majority dismisses your particular hardships as a thing of the past or the result of “hyper-sensitivity”, and refuses to discuss how history continues to echo into the present.

And history is important to identity; roots are important, if only for suggesting a foundation that belongs to an individual or a group of people, rather than identity being formed in opposition to the mainstream, or defined by the perceptions of outside groups.  People whose cultures have been anchored firmly in the soil of history tend to be more resilient in the face of adversity, their core identity sustaining itself against attempts to destroy or assimilate it.  There have been many attempts in the academic sphere and through smaller cultural movements to tie African-Americans back to continental Africa, to reunite the Diaspora with the motherland.  This would be an alternative to claiming American-ness, but like that, comes with its own difficulties.

As already mentioned, Africa is a continent, one with as much cultural and ethnic diversity as virtually the entire rest of the world.  African-Americans have very little in common with Ethiopians or even Nigerians, who for their place in West Africa might be closer related ethnically and culturally.  However, amongst peoples from Africa who migrate to the West, especially the United States, there is a certain sense of African unity, of Africans being one people at least as strangers within this country.  There seems to be no inherent paradox between individual identity as Ethiopian or Nigerian for example, and also identifying more holistically as “African”.

However, this unity does not, by default, extend to African-Americans, who exist in a strange limbo between their very present American identity and their distant African identity.  It becomes a question of whether or not it is possible or even practical, for African-Americans to enfold themselves within that continental identity, as opposed to American identity.  For the cultural, geographical, and historical distance, it seems difficult and even awkward, especially where African-Americans know so little about the continent of Africa itself, a result, invariably, of the “dark continent” paradigm in the West, where very little time is spent investigating the rich history and cultural diversity of an entire continent, leaving countless people viewed through persisting stereotypes, exotification, and definitions imposed by European colonialism, including those that emerge from racism.

The dilemma of African-American identity is one that has remained since enslaved Africans set foot on this soil, and one that is not likely to be solved in one essay or one discussion.  In the meantime, I personally have found some solace from such psychic dissonance in the increasingly popular classification “people of color”, which while it also defines itself in opposition to whiteness, is one that has been willfully taken on by people who are not white, rather than being imposed on them by white people.

In that way, more than blackness, it exists as a statement of defiance to the mainstream U.S. culture, and suggests solidarity rather than group subjugation, amongst those for whom the mere existence of whiteness as a construct has determined their ability to integrate themselves into this “American” culture.  It, like the idea of unity amongst continental Africans and the Diaspora, suggests a global connection, rather than merely a local one.

More than anything this essay is a call to all progressive-minded people to make a change in their language to remove the persisting blight of racism. If you find yourself struggling with how to categorize someone, ask yourself if they even need be categorized within the context of your dialogue. Is he a “black doctor” or just a doctor? In these situations, also have the courage to recognize what your language says about your perceptions of others.